Wednesday 2/28/24
If someone is a petty, slanderous, tyrannical, immature, ignorant, incompetent, fat slob of a bully, is it wrong to call them a fat slob?
I've spent the bulk of the past two days on the phone with the automated system of the IRS because thanks to The Wall Street Journal, the government at the federal and state levels believes I owe them $130,000 on account of an error made by The Wall Street Journal, when I don't owe a penny.
Do you know how much red tape you have to go through with the government to correct an error when someone adds hundreds of thousands of dollars--by putting in extra zeroes--to the 1099 that they erroneously sent them? They have departments within departments within departments and people who were seemingly hired earlier that day from off the street. No one has the authority to do anything. All they can do is write a note for someone else, who writes a note for someone else, and tell you to see if you get something in the mail in three weeks, and if not, to call the same number again.
I heard from an editor at The Wall Street Journal for the first time in two years despite sending one outstanding idea after another in that time who a petty, slanderous, tyrannical, immature, ignorant, incompetent, bully of another editor there had told to shun me because this latter person shat down my throat for an extended period of time--he once yelled at me for beginning an email by asking him how he was--and I had the temerity to politely request that he not yell at me and speak to me as he did. And this second guy? Wow.
When this is over with the government, I am going to light people on fire here in these pages like you would not believe. That second editor actually bragged about what his place of work had done. I'm going to show people how they run their accounting department and the jokes they put in email about all of the errors they make with tax information and the government. And you're not going to believe it. I'm going to tell you about an editor who asked me for naked photos of myself.
I've said I don't like confrontation. I hate it. There is little I'd rather do than have to go at someone.
But here's what's going to happen. Because we're in a new chapter now.
I'm going to move methodically, on my terms, like I've advanced into enemy territory, and I'm going to go down every last street, and torch every building I see. I'm going to write my work, and I'm going to torch people here. Write, torch, write, torch.
